Category: Carnivores general, Education, Wild Dogs, zimbabwe | Date: Jul 17 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi all, its Rafael again,

I want to take this time since I have Moreangels here with me know, to introduce herself and talk about what she is working on here at the African Wild Dog Project and maybe share her experiences so far.

As Rosemary stated in an earlier blog, Moreangels will be here for a few months working on her Master’s research. I will let her take over.

Hallo everyone. My name is Moreangels; I am studying for a Masters of Science Degree in Tropical Resource Ecology with the University of Zimbabwe. I am joining Dr Rosemary and the Lowveld wild dog project as part of my MSc research project. I will be collecting wild dog, hyena, leopard and lion faeces to determine their diets. This will enable us to see if there is diet overlap and hence competition for prey between these carnivores. This is important in determining whether lions, leopards and hyenas are a threat to the wild dog population in Save Valley Conservancy.

My first day with the wild dogs

It was to be my first time going out to live in the bush; I was full of anticipation and excitement before I even set out for my journey to Save Valley Conservancy. The day I arrived, just before sunset, Rosemary and Rafael took me out to one of the packs, the Teddy pack in Sango Ranch. This was my first encounter with the wild dogs; all my senses were alert for any sign of them. Within minutes of arriving at the den two beautiful dogs came out to gaze at us. It was amazing seeing the wild dogs for the first time, I wanted to reach out and touch them but getting out of the car was going to make they run away. All the other dogs came into view one by one and we counted eight of them. After a while they all went away, probably for another hunting adventure. It was just awesome.

Moreangels

Below are some photos I took of Moreangels drying some of her samples.

till next time - Rafael

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Category: Carnivores general, Denning, Education, Other wildlife, Random, Wild Dogs, poaching, zimbabwe | Date: Jul 11 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi Folks, 

Its been a real busy here at the African Wild Dog project. I thought I would let you all in on my involvement and recent happenings lately. Regular check ups on our known packs is one aspect of the project. Now that denning season is upon us, the trips to the den are now anticipated with the emerging of this years pups, like the Maera pups from Rosemary’s last blog. Aside from our visits with the known packs Rosemary is involved in other projects that involve the Conservancy but may or may not involve Wild Dogs. Im involved in the data management of these projects, which include Wild Dog sightings, Blood analysis and poaching occurrences. Also there are spontaneous things that happen, that keeps things very exciting. For example the other day, we had to help a fellow researcher here at Chishakwe free a lion out of a cage, that was intended to lure Cheetahs for research. We have also tried to help in the tranquilizing of Nyala at another section of the conservancy with again another fellow researcher of Rosemary’s. So not only do I get to work with Wild Dogs but I get to help out in other projects occurring at the Conservancy which has been a plus to an already exciting job.

I thought I would share a picture of home base. Most of the work and data is managed here. It is also a nice view with the ranch horses in our front lawn at the moment 

till next time
Rafael

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Category: Education, Random, Uncategorized, zimbabwe | Date: Feb 24 2009 | By: zimbabwewilddogs

Hi folks,

Chishakwe Ranch (where I live) is involved in an environmental education program in some of the schools around the conservancy.  I went along with the managers today to have a look at one of the schools and help out with one of their activities (painting chairs with wild animal pictures and information). 

The chairs before being painted

It was a very interesting day.  Despite it being almost the end of February, the school was not yet officially open, because the teachers are still on strike demanding pay in foreign currency.  They have been on strike since last year, and 94% of rural schools have failed to open this year. 

However, the dedicated headmaster of this school, despite not being paid and having no guidance from the education ministry managed to gather together the children involved in the activity and we turned up to a group of 30 or so very poorly dressed but well behaved and keen students.  All of them participated with enthusiasm in the activity, despite the fact that many had never painted anything before, and the result was a colourful array of chairs for their classroom, all illustrating different wildlife species.

Nonethless it was shocking to see how basic and bare the classrooms were - not a single picture or poster or teaching aid anywhere on the peeling and crumbling walls.  And the level of English was appalling too, which is very sad because the exams are set in English, and there will be little hope of any of them passing (even if they do ever manage to pay markers to mark last year’s exam scripts).  This is not helped by the fact that the vast majority of trained teachers have left the country and untrained and inexperienced people stand in as teachers.

It worries me this, because I believe that Zimbabwe is the wonderful country that it is, and has survived so long despite the worst, in large part due to the excellent education of its people.  Zimbabweans at school prior to 1990 grew up with an excellent education system which provided them with sound morals and an honest and hard-working attitude, hence the resourcefulness of people today.  With the lack of even basic education (schools were open for a total of only 23 days last year in many places), the prospects for the future of the country are worrying.  Where will the next generation of leaders come from?

We at the Wild Dog Project are keen to do something about this, and are currently working on ways of supplementing teachers salaries so that they are able to stay in their jobs, providing scholarships to the poorest and brightest children (from primary school up to university level), and providing resources to the schools.  We’ll tie this in with enhanced efforts in the environmental education program, but really we just want to keep children in school and keep decent teachers so that the children in the area can grow up with a decent chance in life. I’ll keep you posted with our progress.

I’ll add some pictures of the chair-painting experience to this post in a couple of days,

Back soon,

Rosemary

Tags: environmental education, schools, wildlife education, zimbabwe

3 responses so far